


Just Another Moonlight Drive

by Carenejeans



Category: Angel - Fandom
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-09-28
Updated: 2005-09-28
Packaged: 2017-10-17 14:36:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,582
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Carenejeans/pseuds/Carenejeans
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Don't pick up dead hitchhikers on a dark night.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Just Another Moonlight Drive

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Worst-Case Scenario Challenge. Scenario: How to Lose Someone Who is Following You When You are Driving.

The night was cool, the moon was full, and Angel, buttoning up his best Hawaiian shirt, was feeling sharp as a sharp-dressed vampire with a 1967 Plymouth Belvedere GTX convertible stepping out on a cool moonlit night. He dropped to the sidewalk -- sometimes leaving through the window just felt good -- and slid under the wheel of the convertible.

It was a great night to go to the beach.

He tooled along with night wind in his hair and a song on his lips ("Mandy," it must be said) and turned the car towards the freeway that would take him to the coast highway. "Mandy" wasn't an old song, by his reckoning, which was a good, because old songs tended to make people nostalgic for old times, and Angel didn't want to go down that road tonight. The road to the beach, right. He nodded to himself. Relaxation, good times, that's the ticket.

Which was why he ignored the man standing at the edge of the onramp with his thumb stuck out.

"Hey!"

Angel could hear Spike's outraged voice, if faintly, over the gunning of the motor; and he could see Spike's outraged face, briefly, before he resolutely turned his eyes back to the road and put Spike out of his mind and concentrated on ... what was it... good times. The beach. Company that was not-Spike.

The car sped onto the freeway and Angel leaned back against the fine leather, belting out a rendition of "Summer Means Fun" in a tempo its originators would not have recognized. His spirits began to lift again. Heading west, he could almost smell the salt air of the ocean and the fishy, seaweedy smell of the beach, and he tapped out his idea of a surf drum solo on the steering wheel. He was feeling good.

So he did _not_ need the idiot who'd sped up behind him and was hanging on his bumper like a shark on a surfboard.

An idiot in a big, black, ugly, gas-guzzling, testosterone-inflated, overpriced SUV.

"Get off my tail! Get off the damn _road!_ " Angel yelled, safe in the assurance the driver couldn't hear him. "Go back to Driver's Ed!" Angel sped up, but the other driver sped up too, and stayed right behind him. Inches away from the Belvedere's shiny chrome bumper.

Angel hung to the right, to let the idiot in the SUV pass him. It wasn't like he didn't have five other lanes to drive in. But the idiot stayed glued to his tail.

"What the--" Angel cursed under his breath, and took his foot off the accelerator.

The idiot behind him slowed down too.

"Go around, fool!" Angel cursed, and signaled with his arm for the other driver to pass. The SUV stayed resolutely behind him. Angel motioned again, but still the SUV made no move to pass. Squinting into the rearview mirror, Angel tried to see the driver's face, but the windshield was full of moonlight.

"Damn it!" Angel half twisted in his seat. "Can't you read sign language? GO AROUND!"

The SUV swerved suddenly to the left and slammed on its brakes as it crossed the line, then jerked just as hard to the right, skidding and sending up a cloud of dust as its tires went off onto shoulder. Then it seemed to shudder, and fell back with an ugly sound of grinding gears.

"Idiot." Angel relaxed a bit as the SUV grew smaller in his rearview mirror. He reached over to turn on the radio. He'd heard the Adult Classic station was doing a Manilow marathon.

"Damn!" Angel's rearview mirror lit up as the SUV bore down on the Belvedere, its high-beams flashing and its horn going like a banshee -- and Angel had heard banshees in his day. This was the worst kind of banshee. Angel stomped on the gas, and as the big car ate the asphalt he had just enough time to yell, "Oh, shit!" before everything went dark.

Caught between the devil and the dark black fog, Angel couldn't slow down, and couldn't see what he was speeding into, so he did the only thing he could do: he leaned on his own horn. And he yelled, too, for good measure, not because it did any good, but because he felt like it.

He was still yelling when the fog abruptly thinned away, leaving nothing but clear sky ahead and a pair of headlights coming in his direction -- thankfully on the other side of the yellow line.

He closed his mouth and frowned. Yellow line?

The headlights belonged to a bus. Faces lit from within passed in a row, all looking at him curiously. Feeling a bit chagrinned, he took his hand off the horn.

He checked the rearview mirror. No fog. No SUV. The road was as clear as a bell as far back as he could see.

It was also two lanes wide. With a yellow line down the middle.

 _All_ the way back.

"Not in Kansas anymore," Angel muttered. The moonlit, inexplicably two-lane road spun out ahead like a black ribbon. From the darkness on either side came the smell of -- earth, of cut grass -- of _agriculture_.

"Or maybe we _are_?" He gripped the wheel and frantically started to sing. " _Oh Mandy well, you came and you gave without taking..._ num num num... _and I need you today Oh, Mandy!_ "

The lilting tune wasn't quite strong enough to cast out his sudden dread of gloom-shrouded munchkins dancing out of the cornfields or whatever they were out there.

The wind buffeting against him made him cold. He was sweating.

Maybe if he could remember all the words it'd work better.

The night-glowing letters of a highway sign pointed to a turn-off. With a half-sigh of relief, Angel swung the car to the right and slowed into the turn of the cloverleaf. Maybe a trip to the beach wasn't in the cards tonight. Maybe solitaire was in the cards. He'd just go home and play a few hundred rounds. The cloverleaf unwound to an intersection and Angel turned the wheel to the left.

The car went right. He frowned. The car glided smoothly up the curve of the freeway entrance.

He was still frowning when he passed Spike on the shoulder, his thumb stuck out.

His brow was still furrowed when he looked in the rearview mirror to catch Spike's obscene gesture in his direction.

He was glowering when he slowed the car, and he was well on his way to a brooding scowl when Spike yanked open the door and flung himself into the car.

"Thanks for coming back to pick me up," he said, lighting a cigarette.

"I didn't--"

"Where are we going?"

Angel opened his mouth to explain, and decided against it. "To the beach."

"Cool." Spike exhaled and sprawled all over his side of the car. "Nothing like the beach at full moon," he said cheerfully. "Think there'll be any chicks there? Some of those nice Goth girls would be fine about now."

Angel turned on the radio to tune him out.

"Fine," Spike said. "Where'd you get that shirt? It makes you look gay."

"I like this shirt," Angel said.

"It makes you look like a heavy from Hawaii Five-0." Spike raised an eyebrow. "Snuck it by Cordelia, eh? Must have gone out by the window. Can't imagine she'd let you out in that if she'd seen -- what the fuck is that guy doing?"

Angel glanced into the rearview mirror.

A large, dark, ominous, musclebound SUV was cozying up to his bumper like Spike glomming onto a Goth girl.

"Not again," Angel said.

"You know this guy?"

"Just met him, the last time around."

"Last time around?"

"Yeah, remember when I didn't pick you up? That last time."

"Bugger! The wanker's practically climbing your boot. Speed up."

Angel shrugged and pushed down on the gas petal. The convertible surged forward.

The SUV lunged after.

"The hell!" Spike was twisted around in his seat facing the SUV as it bore down on them. "Go faster!"

Angel floored the gas pedal, and the convertible sped down the highway, leaving the SUV behind -- but only for a moment. It roared up behind them, weaving to the left and to the right, and suddenly let out a blare of its horn.

"Here comes the good part," Angel said dryly.

The fog bank hit the windshield like a solid wall, and Spike threw up his hands. "Aaaah! We're gonna smash!"

The car emerged into the clear air beyond. "Oh." Spike said. "Never mind."

Angel said nothing, just waved at the curious faces in the bus as it passed by.

Spike was turned all the way around in his seat. "Where'd he go? He's gone."

"Really."

"There's --" Spike waved his hands in front of his face. "Nobody on the road behind us."

"Fancy that."

"Something wrong with the road too."

"No kidding."

"All right then. What's going on?"

"Just a moonlight drive through hell," Angel said.

"But--" Spike looked puzzled.

"Just sit back and enjoy it," Angel said. "I have a feeling we're going to be here awhile." The exit sign glowed in the dark and he made the turn-off, slowing down for the cloverleaf and speeding up for the onramp.

"Now this part," he said conversationally, "Should be interesting, because you--" he turned to Spike. But Spike was no longer next to him.

He was standing on the edge of the on ramp, his thumb stuck out.

  
"We've got to stop meeting like this," Spike said, as he flopped down on the seat.

"What are you doing here, by the way?" Angel sped up and turned onto the freeway.

"Hitch-hiking."

"I could see that. How did you just happen to be hitch-hiking in the middle of the night on an onramp that I just happen to take--" Angel threw his hands in the air, his voice rising, "--that just happens to lead to-- whatever?"

"When else am I going to hitch-hike? Can't play Kerouac in the midday sun, now can I? Kindly keep your hands on the wheel."

Angel lowered his hands to the wheel and counted to ten. Then he counted to ten again. "Where were you going?"

"I was-- I just--" Spike frowned. "I have no idea."

"This isn't good." Angel gritted his teeth. "What have I done--" he paused. "Lately -- to deserve being stuck in a time-loop with you?"

"Only you can answer that," Spike said piously. He settled more comfortably in his seat. "So, we're just going to keep going around and around in circles with a sodding SUV on our tail?"

"Looks that way," Angel said.

"Why?"

"No idea," Angel said, unable to keep the sarcasm from his voice.

"Maybe it's like that movie -- where the guy had to keep reliving his day over and over until he got it right. Ground Hog Day."

"There's a movie about that?"

"You did pick me up the second time," Spike said, considering." And the third. So that's something."

Angel shrugged.

"Of course, that was a love story and--"

"Spike."

"What?"

"Shut up."

"Suit yourself." Spike looked over his shoulder. "And here comes Mister American Gas Guzzler now."

Angel glanced at the rearview mirror. "Great."

"So what do you think is driving that thing? Uber vampire? Demon God? Yuppie Robot?"

"Yes."

"What do you think he's up to?"

"Can I read his mind?" Angel snapped. "Maybe he's haunting the road. Maybe something bad happened here."

"Hate to break it to you, mate, but bad things happen everywhere. What's so special about this stretch of road?"

"Who knows. Bad accident. Murder. Grand theft auto." He glanced at the rearview mirror again. "Maybe he's -- cursed."

"Who isn't? He's catching up fast," Spike observed.

"Thanks for the update."

"Any minute now he'll be leaning on that friggin' horn."

Angel said nothing, but his hands tightened on the steering wheel.

Spike looked at him. "You're fixing to do something stupid, aren't you?"

The SUV roared forward, and the blast of the horn hit their ears as they hit the fog bank. But this time, instead of racing through it, Angel slammed on the brakes and spun the steering wheel. The car fishtailed, but the wheels caught and the car spun around until it faced back the way they had come.

"Fuck!" Spike let go of his ears and clutched the seat as the convertible barreled back through fog that seemed to get darker as they went.

"Well, this is just weird," Spike said. "There's nothing here."

Angel leaned forward and tried to see through the black fog.

"Oh, hell," he said. High-beam headlights coming right at them wasn't what he'd been looking for.

" _Bloody_ hell!" Spike yelled as they sped towards the oncoming SUV. "You got air bags in this relic?"

Angel didn't answer. His jaw was clenched and his eyes narrowed and he drove straight towards the SUV, which was driving straight towards them.

Spike threw his arms in front of his face as they met the SUV head-on.

And drove right through it.

Angel let out a relieved sigh. Spike lowered his arms. "Can't say I saw that coming."

They were still driving in the fog. There was no one else on the road. There were no road signs, not even a mile marker along the shoulder. It was just a featureless, gray, shrouded stretch of highway that could have been anywhere. Or nowhere.

Spiked looked around glumly. "Now what?"

Angel had slowed the car almost to a stop. "Now we wait."

"For what? Highway haunts? Your friendly freeway fiend?"

"Something like that."

"Well, I hope we're not going to fight. I'm just not in the mood for it. I don't wanna see any big bad coming out of that fog, because-- oh, right."

A lone figure walked along the center of the highway, a young girl dressed in a bright coat and trailing scarf. She seemed oblivious to her surroundings, concentrating on placing her feet carefully between the painted strips of yellow line, making a small hop every third or fourth step.

It would be more dramatic, Angel thought, if the girl's face had been hollow and haggard, if she were wrapped in an aura of the ethereal and the dread, but as it was, well, as a ghost she made a terrific bored teenager. Having been caught in a few of the more boring hell dimensions, he knew that if _he_ had to walk alone down the center of the roadway for an unspecified-period-of-time-to-eternity, he'd be playing hopscotch on the center line too.

Angel slowed the car to a stop and got out. The girl continued down the road in her strange hop and skip fashion until she came close enough to shake hands and say how-do, when she seemed to see him for the first time. She stopped and considered him owlishly, her face tilted to one side.

Angel looked her over. She seemed corporeal enough. "I'm Angel," he said. "Do you need help?"

"I need a ride?" She seemed perplexed, as if unsure of what she was supposed to do next. Then she nodded. "I need a ride," she said more firmly. "I need to get home."

"Hop in." Angel opened the door for her and she slid in. Angel noticed she held her coat clutched tightly to her body, but otherwise she didn't seem nervous, even with Spike in the front seat. She didn't seem to notice Spike at all.

Angel got back behind the wheel. "Which way?"

The girl said nothing, but pointed in the direction they'd been going when the SUV started tailgating them.

"And where is home? How will we know we're there?"

"It's along the road. You'll see it. All-Rite Truck Stop. All right, all night," she said in a singsong voice.

Angel started the car. "Is she-- you know?" Spike stage-whispered, and drew a finger across his throat.

Angel shrugged. "She's as alive as you or me."

"That's not saying a whole lot."

"Just keep an eye out for the All-Rite."

Angel turned the car around and they rode in silence. The fog lightened but still hung in wisps over the road like ghostly Spanish moss. Angel kept wanting to brush it out of his hair. Spike hunkered down in his coat, staring out into the gloom.

In the back seat, the girl clutched her coat to her chest and stared out at nothing in particular. But suddenly she let out a low cry, as a shimmer of color appeared in the grayness ahead, and she became more agitated as the outlines of a sign came into focus.

"All-Rite To-Nite 1-Mile," Spike sang out, looking sidelong at the girl in the back seat, who was whimpering and clutching at the front of her coat with both hands. "Uh-oh," Spike said. "Little Orphan Annie here's got a problem."

"What, what?" Angel twisted his neck so he could see the girl. Something dark spread over the front of her coat where she clutched it with white fingers.

"You'll need to have the upholstery done again, if you get my drift," Spike said.

"Damn. Are we there yet?" Angel pressed the gas pedal harder.

"Yeah, comin' up." A blaze of white light loomed up out of the dimness alongside the road and came into focus as a line of light bulbs blinking around a very large arrow pointing towards a very small building. "Looks like our stop."

Angel pulled the car into the parking lot -- packed full except for one slot near the front. He looked at Spike, who shrugged.

"Do you need any help?" Angel asked the girl, who had burst out of the car almost before it stopped. She shook her head, and, without looking at him, scurried towards the door.

"You're welcome!" Spike called out, then shrugged philosophically. "Since we're here, let's get a cuppa. We might not get another chance soon. And if you need to go to the powder room, better go now, because we're not stopping later," he added, smirking at Angel's scowl.

"I just want to make sure the girl's taken care of."

"She's been taken care of all right," Spike said darkly, as they entered the truck stop.

Inside, it was warm and light and homely. People hunkered in twos and threes over tables laden with coffee and breakfast-all-night, most of them with the slightly glazed look of people just about to go back to work.

In the midst of it all stood the girl, looking forlorn. Angel stepped up behind her.

"You two want a table?" A red-faced and harried waitress called out.

"Uh, just coffee to go, black" Angel said. "We just wanted to make sure the girl was okay."

"I want cream," Spike said.

"Two coffees, black, white," the waitress repeated. "What girl?"

"The, um, this girl." As Angel pointed at the girl in front of him, she moved forward towards the counter.

"Don't see no girl," the waitress said, her face starting to set in suspicion.

"She's right--" he stopped as Spike jabbed him with an elbow. The girl had drifted to the counter, and was now drifting _through_ the counter.

"Oh." Angel stood for a moment uncertainly. Then he smiled brightly at the waitress. "Could we have pie with that?"

"Well, that's that," Spike said, as they sped away from the All-Rite Truck Stop.

Angel was silent.

"Less 'Groundhog Day' and more 'Vanishing Hitchhiker.'"

The only sound was the whir of the tires on the asphalt.

"Or Large Marge," Spike said. He lowered his voice. "It was the dark-est night I e-ver seen."

You could have heard crickets chirp, if there had been any crickets chirping at that particular moment.

"Well, we got her home, right? So now it's our turn. Have we broken out of that friggin' loop?" They were still driving in the fog.

"I hope so. Not that I don't just love driving out with you, but this night is getting long."

"Thought I saw an exit sign just then." Spike hung out his side of the car, trying to look back behind them.

"I didn't see anything."

"Look, there's the moon!" Spike said, pointing overhead. "Stars. Real sky."

Angel glanced up just in time to see the moon shine through the fog and down again almost too late to catch the exit. He jerked the wheel and drove across the shoulder, the car's wheels throwing up gravel.

"Yeeha!" Spike yelled, pounding the dashboard.

Angel ignored him, letting the car coast down the exit to a stop.

They sat in silence for a moment. The moon went behind a cloud, and came out again.

"So where do you want to go?"

"Anywhere, as long as it's not up that friggin' freeway."

"You know another way to the beach?"

"Forget the beach, mate."

"What about the Goth girls?"

"I've had enough of Goth girls for one night. Are you trying to strangle the steering wheel?"

Angel let his hands relax. He started the car. The convertible hummed along the street, and turned left when he signaled. He let out his breath.

"Ground Hog Day," Spike muttered under his breath. "You have rum at your place?"

"Yeah."

"Tequila?"

"Yes."

"Whisky?"

"My liquor cabinet is well-stocked, Spike."

"Let's go then." Spike reached inside his jacket and produced a deck of cards. "I've got a good solitaire game, bet you haven't seen."

Angel smiled. "Sounds good to me."

They drove through the moonlight, with the wind in their hair.

  
-End-


End file.
